The sound of Janice Joplin singing Kris Kristofferson's words echoes through my head: Freedom's just another name for nothing left to lose.

There is much truth in those words, and not all of it bad news. There is the bitter freedom of the one who has foolishly abandoned the good and the freedom of the refugee and the poor and the oppressed, who have had everything taken from them, but there is also the blessed freedom of the monk who, owning nothing, possesses everything.

The other thought coursing through my brain is that today is the Feast of the Innocents, commemorating the children of Bethlehem two years ago old and younger who were slaughtered at the whim of Herod the Great lest one of them turn out to be the king of the Jews whose star the magi had seen from their home in the east.

The magi were free to go home, as warned, by a different way; Herod the Great was free to do great evil; and the children were free to die. And the mothers from whose arms they were torn? 'Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more ."' No, there was nothing left to lose.

Finally we have the enigmatic words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:17, Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Jim Elliot wrote in his journal shortly before his martyrdom, "he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

We may choose our freedom, or it may simply be thrust upon us.

What is my freedom? What is yours?

#writewellness @magnoliayogabr #cultivatewellness